LONDON: Prince Harry, singer Elton John, and five other prominent figures are set to begin their privacy lawsuits against the Daily Mail on Monday, with the trial officially opening at London’s High Court.
The claimants include Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and younger son of King Charles music icon Elton John and his husband David Furnish actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost campaigner Doreen Lawrence and former lawmaker Simon Hughes.
They are suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, and MailOnline, alleging the use of unlawful methods to obtain private information.
The legal action was first filed in October 2020.
The seven claimants allege that between 1993 and 2011, journalists working for ANL hired private investigators to carry out illegal activities.
These reportedly included hacking mobile voicemails, tapping landline phones, and obtaining confidential data such as flight schedules and medical records through deception, a practice known as “blagging.”
Several senior current and former journalists, including editors, are named in the claims. ANL denies all allegations, calling them “preposterous smears.”
Preliminary hearings have taken place to determine whether the case could proceed and which allegations the court could consider.
In November 2023, Judge Matthew Nicklin ruled that the case should go to trial, rejecting ANL’s argument that it was filed outside the six-year limit.
In 2024, the British government allowed the claimants’ legal team to use documents from a 2011–12 public inquiry into press standards, held after the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World.
In October, Judge Nicklin barred the inclusion of allegations involving Kate, Princess of Wales, and rejected other applications. Broader claims concerning phone hacking at other media organizations were also removed.
All claimants, including Harry, will appear in court to give evidence and respond to ANL’s questioning, while Elton John and David Furnish are expected to testify remotely.
This will be Harry’s second time giving testimony in a witness box, after his successful 2023 phone-hacking lawsuit against the Daily Mirror, where he became the first royal in over 130 years to testify.
ANL’s witnesses will include current and former editors, senior journalists, and notably Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail and current editor-in-chief of DMG Media. Dacre is expected to be the first ANL witness, with other senior figures called early in the trial.
Judge Nicklin has stressed that the trial should focus on specific articles the claimants allege were based on unlawfully obtained information, rather than evolving into a wide-ranging inquiry into newspaper practices.
David Sherborne, representing the claimants, will aim to demonstrate that ANL used illegal methods to secure stories about Harry, Elton John, and the others. ANL maintains that the reports were lawfully obtained and denies hiring private detectives to hack phones.
ANL has also described the case as part of an anti-press campaign, pointing to figures like actor Hugh Grant and the late privacy advocate Max Mosley, who are assisting Harry’s legal team. ANL claims a “Daily Mail Plan” was allegedly in place years ago, suggesting some claims may fail due to time limits.
A critical aspect will be the testimony of private investigator Gavin Burrows, central to many allegations. In August 2021, he gave a witness statement to the claimants asserting that he had bugged landlines for ANL.
However, he later told ANL’s lawyers that his earlier statement was “substantially untrue,” prepared without his knowledge, and that his signature had been forged.
In January, Harry reached a settlement in a separate case against Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper group (NGN) just before a 10-week trial was scheduled. The settlement included an apology and acknowledgment that private investigators for the Sun newspaper had acted unlawfully.
NGN had previously paid millions to roughly 1,000 victims of phone-hacking at its defunct News of the World title.
A similar resolution with ANL would be more complex, as the publisher maintains that none of its outlets were involved in unlawful information gathering.
